Chapter 10

"I think this will be lovely! Lady Vorkosigan is going to be so pleased!"

Anny smiled as pleasantly as she could and nodded her head idiotically in response to Lady Penelope Vorsilva's statement. Sara Fetherbay caught her eye and winked. It was three days after Ekaterin had visited the fort and Anny could scarcely believe how quickly her plan was taking shape. Upon reflection, however, she supposed she shouldn't really have been surprised that Lady Vorsilva was throwing herself into this so enthusiastically. Sara had mentioned that the woman was a socialite at heart and the chance to get into the good graces of a future countess was something she just couldn't ignore.

So the three of them were sitting at the dining room table of Vorsilva's rather lavish house making plans for setting up women's organizations for the entire brigade.

"Now we can put Dolores Waski in charge of the 2nd battalion group for the 61st and Regina Vorscans for the 283rd," continued Vorsilva, "it's a shame that that nice Captain Vorglanov isn't married—he's so handsome I can't imagine why he isn't—but maybe Louisa Vorjanis can fill in that spot for the 61st's 1st battalion, then…"

"Uh, Penny?" said Sara. "Perhaps we shouldn't automatically put the wives of the unit commanders in charge of the women's groups."

"What? Why not?" Lady Vorsilva looked puzzled.

"You remember what Lady Vorkosigan said: the women in the most need are going to be the wives of the enlistedmen. There's already a huge divide between the officer's wives and the enlisted wives. If we maintain that hierarchy in the women's organizations, I'm afraid that enlisted wives are going to be intimidated and not feel like they have any real say—or stake—in the groups. Perhaps we should just set up the groups and let the natural leaders rise to the top—no matter what rank their husbands hold."

Vorsilva looked taken back. "Oh, uh, she did mention something about that, didn't she? But I just thought that… well, I suppose we could give it a try…"

"Hello, dear, sorry I'm late but… oh, hello, what do we have here?" General Vorsilva had come into the room and stopped dead. Anny popped to her feet, but the other two women didn't move beyond turning their heads.

"Good evening, sir," said Anny. The general was wearing his undress greens, just as she was, but his tunic was open and he was obviously surprised to find her there.

"Evening, Lieutenant," replied Vorsilva, frowning. "What brings you here?"

"Honestly, Harold!" cried Lady Vorsilva. "Sometimes I don't think you listen to a word I say!"

"What?"

"I told you all about Lady Vorkosigan's visit, didn't I?"

"Yes… at length…"

"And how she suggested setting up help groups for the wives?"

"Oh, that. Yes, of course. So that's what you're doing?"

"Of course! And it's going splendidly!"

"Ah, well, good, good. But what is Lieutenant Payne doing here?" He was frowning at her and fumbling to close his tunic.

"What's she doing here?" exclaimed Lady Vorsilva. "Her job is public relations, isn't it? And that's just what these groups will be! Public relations! Anny is going to be a big part of this, Harold. And Anny, do sit down. You're not on parade!"

Anny looked awkwardly between the general and his wife and then slowly sank into her chair. The general was still frowning. "I… see," he growled. "So when's dinner?"

"Oh in a bit, in a bit. Why don't you go have a drink in your study in the meantime?"

The general grumbled something Anny couldn't catch and left the room.

"Don't mind Harold," said Lady Vorsilva. "Now where were we?"

"Talking about letting the natural leaders run the groups," said Sara. "And you know, Penny, I think we should also include some of the townswomen. Lady Vorkosigan suggested it might help in the civil-military relations."

"Oh? Well, I suppose we could…"

An hour later, at General Vorsilva's direct order to the house cook, dinner was served. Anny tried to escape, but Lady Penelope insisted that she stay. Anny felt very self-conscious and the General glared at her most of the time, but his wife kept chattering away, oblivious, it seemed.

By the time Anny and Sara Fetherbay finally left the Vorsilva house it was fully dark; the summer was past and night was coming earlier and earlier. They walked towards Fetherbay's residence along the quiet pathways. "So what do you think?" asked Sara.

"I think it's a good start. Except that I'm not sure that Lady Penelope understands that this is… isn't…"

"Isn't some sort of ladies' tea and quilting society?" Sara laughed.

"Well, yes." The more contact Anny had with Lady Penelope the more she reminded her of Lady Vorgallan, a Vor matriarch who had nearly driven Anny to distraction in her senior year at the Academy.

"She might not ever really understand, Anny. But the important thing is that she's backing this. We can get the groups set up and do some real good and if Penny thinks it's all for something different, it won't matter."

"But you understand." Anny looked at Sara.

"Yes, yes I do. I'm not Vor and while I'm not from one of those desperately poor areas like you are, I'm still a lot closer to your background than Penny's. I know the challenges that our women face. And I'm thrilled that we're going to try and help them—as embarrassing as it is."

"Embarrassing?"

"Embarrassing personally." Sara looked away for a moment. "I'm the Colonel's wife, Anny. I should have been the one to think of this. Frankly, I'm ashamed that it took you and Lady Vorkosigan to see what's been staring me in the face for years."

"It's been staring everyone in the face for centuries, Sara. I saw the problem—because I had my nose rubbed in it—but I didn't see the answer either. Change is never easy." Anny was startled with where the conversation as going.

"Then I guess we both owe a debt to Lady Vorkosigan."

"From what I've seen, the whole Empire owes a lot to the Vorkosigans."

"Yes. They've been the agents of change for a long time now. But I guess it's time for the rest of us to get to work, too, eh?"

"I guess so. Can we meet again tomorrow? Uh… maybe just the two of us? To set up some schedules?"

"I think that would be good." They reached Sara's house and parted. Anny headed for her own quarters and was feeling good about what had been accomplished. She was actually doing something proactive, not just waiting to deal with each problem as they cropped up. In her tactics classes at the Academy she'd always preferred offense to defense.

And so over the next days and weeks she worked to set up the women's groups. With Lady Vorsilva's backing they got access to facilities on the base and in town that could be used for larger meetings. Once things got going smaller meetings were held in homes. Ekaterin provided copies of videos she'd acquired or had made for her groups in the district and Anny even drafted Alby into helping out with computer presentations and finding even more material from galactic sources.

Initially attendance was low, but it grew rapidly as the word spread. When Ekaterin showed up for a few meetings they could scarcely fit everyone in to the meeting places. She followed Ekaterin's plan of starting out with presentations on useful household subjects and slowly introducing more serious things. And it wasn't just instructional meetings. After she'd gotten to know some of the women and explained that many of the physical repairs or improvements that people wanted just were not in the budget, they formed volunteer groups to do the repairs and improvements themselves. This, inevitably, dragged husbands and boyfriends into the activities as well. At first there was some resistance and resentment on their part, but as time went by and everyone could see the benefits, that passed. She got a few snide remarks from some of the officers and she picked up the nickname 'Anny Homemaker' but she could put up with that.

The trickiest part was slipping in the counseling for the more serious matters. Anny had made a list of all the women who had domestic violence reports submitted about them and anxiously looked to see if any of them joined the groups. In the beginning there were none and she wondered if her hopes had been unrealistic. But after the volunteer repair groups got organized, she saw a few of the women on the list start to attend. She had to force herself to not treat them any differently than the others and possibly scare them off.

"I'm not sure how to broach the subject," she said to Sara Fetherbay one day. "I mean I can hardly walk up to them and say: By the way, does your husband still beat you?"

Sara smiled grimly and shook her head. "No, I don't think that would be a good idea. We have to go slowly, try to build up some trust and then… see what we can do."

The days passed. Anny fell into a routine and even General Vorsilva seemed satisfied with what she was doing—although she wasn't sure how much the general's wife had to do with that. She continued to work out and practice her fencing and attend dress parade. Every now and then she'd drop in on her old platoon to see how they were doing. It was painful, but at least they seemed to be glad to see her.

The autumn was half gone when one day she got a message on her comconsole. She read it and swore.

"Damn…"

[Scene Break]

"Anny! What's wrong?" Jer jumped to his feet as Anny came through his door. Her face was pale and her expression…

"Rough day," she said, shaking her head.

"What happened? I thought things were going better, that those groups you're setting up were working out pretty good!"

"Oh, yeah, they are," she said, slumping down on his bed. "Something else came up today."

"What?"

"There was a man in 3rd Battalion killed with the fleet."

"Oh, that's right! We just heard about it this afternoon! A freak accident they said. A damn shame with them on their way home and all. But what…? Oh hell!"

"Yeah, with all of the battalion's officers off-planet, guess who got to inform the wife and kids?"

"Oh, Anny!" He sat next to her and took her hand. "How bad was it?"

"Pretty bad." She sniffled and Jer could see tears welling in her eyes. "I never… when we lost all those men on Dounby, we were still three months from home and the news got here months ahead of us and we never went back to Fort Vormeyer anyway and I never had to… oh damn!" The tears were spilling out now and she angrily wiped them away. "Fine officer I am!"

"Nothing to be ashamed of," said Jer, putting an arm around her and pulling her close. He was quite certain she hadn't let anything show up until now. Holding it in… "How many… how many kids?"

"Three. One was just a toddler but the other two were old enough to understand. The woman… damn… the woman was someone I'd met at one of the groups! When she saw me at her door she thought it was something to do with that. She never suspected until I… Oh, Jer, it was like someone had punctured a balloon and all the air leaked out!"

"You had to do it alone?"

"Sergeant Elridge drove over with me, but I told him to wait in the car. The woman went almost catatonic and the kids started crying. I didn't… I didn't know what the hell to do. I stayed with them a half hour or so. It felt like hours. Then some of her neighbors came over—got the news or heard the crying I don't know which—and I left her with them." More tears were on her cheeks. "I guess… I guess I'm gonna have to add 'grief counseling' to what the groups do now, huh?"

Jer squeezed her but didn't know what to say. Other militaries had chaplains to help with things like this. But Barrayar's almost religionless society did not have things like that. "So… so how'd you get assigned the job?"

"An order came down from Brigade. The chief of staff had signed it. Don't know whose idea it was to give it to me."

"Brigade? Not regiment? I mean he was a 61st man. I would have thought…"

"Yeah, me, too. At the time I was too flustered to think about it. When I got back there was a message from Fetherbay asking if I would be willing to go along when he went to see the widow. He sounded seriously pissed when I commed to tell him I'd already been ordered to see her."

"I can imagine." Why had Vorsilva bypassed the normal chain of command? If it had been him. Maybe someone on his staff had just made a mistake. Or maybe they deliberately wanted to give Anny this hard duty… or… too many unknowns.

"I don't think I like this job," said Anny in a near-whisper. He could feel her shuddering.

"Anny…"

"Just hold me."

He held her.

[Scene Break]

"Lieutenant? Got a minute?"

Anny looked up from her desk and saw Corporal Kane standing there. She glanced back at her comconsoles and decided that the report she was working on could wait for a few minutes. "Sure," she said. "What's up?"

"I had an idea and I wanted to show you something."

"What?"

"Be easier to show you, sir. It's over in the store room building behind the HQ. Better take your coat, sir; getting damn chilly outside."

Mystified, but glad for any excuse to get out of her office for a while, Anny grabbed her greatcoat and followed Kane out the back door of the building. He had been right: there was a cutting breeze slicing through the valley. Autumn was just about over and they'd had a snow flurry the other day. Winter was coming. And time was passing. 3rd Battalion had returned from their assignment with the fleet a few weeks ago. There had been celebrations and happy reunions—and one solemn memorial service. She'd been the head of Public Relations for over four months now. She could scarcely believe it.

They reached the storage building and Kane produced a key to unlock the door. Anny wasn't sure Kane was supposed to have a key, but she'd quickly come to realize that Kane was the… resourceful one in her office. He let them inside and flipped on the light and led her down a corridor to another door which he also unlocked. "I had noticed this thing a few years ago when we were doing an inventory," he said. "Not sure why they didn't throw it all out, but I had a thought that maybe we could use it now." He turned on the light in the room and stood aside so Anny could take a look. There were boxes piled to the ceiling that she recognized as containers for blank flimsies, but in the center of the room was…

"What is it?"

"It's a printer, sir. An old industrial model. I did some checking and it turns out that the 61st used to publish a regimental newspaper years ago. I was thinking that maybe we could start it back up."

"A newspaper, Corporal? Isn't that kind of… out of date? I mean don't most people get all their news off the 'net or the news vids?"

Kane shrugged. "For planetary news, sure, although I know there are some older townsfolk who don't use the new-fangled stuff. But I was thinking more for local news, sir. Stories about what's going on in the fort and in the town."

"Oh, I see," said Anny. "But isn't there an electronic newsletter…?"

"That's just for official announcements and stuff, sir. I was thinking this would be more human interest stories and public service articles—kind of like what your women's groups are doing, but this would be for everyone."

"They're not my women's groups, Corporal," said Anny. She eyed him and smiled. "Do I have a frustrated journalist in my department?"

He smiled back. "Maybe. But I'd like to give this a try if you'd give permission, sir. I think I can get this thing running and it wouldn't really cost anything. And, well, we're running out of things to do, sir."

Anny sucked on her cheek. Kane was right; the S-9 department was running out of official work to do. The women's groups were largely to thank for that. Not only were they handling a lot of the issues they had once submitted complaints about, but thanks to the networking that had developed, they now knew just how to apply pressure to get the things fixed that they couldn't fix themselves. Need a broken sink replaced? Well, Mrs. Zambino's husband works in the base plumbing shop—go talk to her! Things were getting done and the complaints landing in the S-9 office had fallen dramatically.

Of course this hadn't affected Anny's workload much since she was spending more and more time with the groups, but the three men in her office were finding themselves at loose ends. "So who would do the writing? I hope you don't expect me to!"

Kane chuckled. "I figured I'd do some and maybe you could ask some of the ladies to contribute stuff. And if you did find the time to write anything, I'm sure I could find room to fit it in. It would probably only be a page or two to start."

"And how would you distribute it?"

"Well, since it would be free, we could just leave stacks of them here and there. In the mess halls here on the base. In town we could put them in stores or in the housing units."

"You seem to have it all figured out, Corporal."

"I'm trying, sir. Does that mean it's okay?"

Anny shrugged and smiled. "Why not? Good luck."

"Thanks, sir!"

And so the Fort Vorolson Gazette was born. At first it was just a page or two with not much more than was to be found in the electronic newsletter. But Kane had a talent for writing and for finding good stories and before long the Gazette had quite a circulation. So much so that local businesses started wanting to place advertisements in it. Somehow Anny managed to get permission for that to happen, with the advertising fees being funneled back into the paper for supplies.

Kane quickly had a number of contributors and Anny even wrote a few articles. But her biggest contribution was when she got Ekaterin to write a piece for the paper. And it really seemed to be having an effect. There was a new solidarity in the military families and once Kane found some townspeople who were willing to contribute, the people of Malverton became teammates rather than competitors. It was actually making a difference. Anny still wanted to get back to her platoon, but she couldn't help but feel good about what she'd managed to accomplish in Public Relations.

The dark gloom of the summer was being replaced with a more hopeful winter. Jer was doing well with his platoon and even Alby was perkier. Apparently he'd managed to break the log-jam that had been holding up the simulator facility and he told them that it ought to be up and running by the spring. And they got a message from Patric Mederov that the family crisis that had pulled him away from them had been resolved and he had put in a request to be transferred to the 61st. She really hoped he could manage that. They all missed the big farm boy. She still occasionally got nasty remarks from Vorkerkas and his crowd at fencing practice and during the tryouts for an upcoming tournament she'd been forced to compete against him, but with official judges in attendance he'd behaved himself and beaten her without any shenanigans. He was still a lot better than her with the sabre, but she was catching up fast.

Overall she was feeling much better than she had in months. The only problem she hadn't been able to solve as well as she'd have liked was that of domestic violence. There were still battered women in the brigade and there didn't seem to be any easy solution.

"We've helped stop quite a few of the cases," said Sara Fetherbay one day when Anny brought up the subject. "We've gotten the women and their men into counseling and it seems to be working."

"Some, but not all. And there are probably still more cases we never hear about."

"I had a thought the other day, Lieutenant," said Fetherbay's daughter, Shelly, who often sat in on their planning meetings. "I've heard that you are really good at close combat. Maybe we could have some training classes, teach the women how to defend themselves."

A chill went through Anny. She'd had the thought herself, but after really thinking about it, she'd hoped no one else would ever bring it up. She glanced at Sara Fetherbay and the woman also seemed troubled by the suggestion. "Shelly," said Fetherbay, "I'm not sure that's such a good idea…"

"But why not? If the women could protect themselves then their men might not beat them up!"

"But we'd be deliberately setting husbands and wives against each other, dear. Not a good thing."

"And most of the men here are well-trained in close combat themselves, Shelly", added Anny. "The bullies might take it as a challenge rather than a deterrent. It could get out of hand. We want to stop the violence, not create more." The young woman looked disappointed, hurt even, so Anny added. "Still, it's worth taking a closer look at. Maybe something for younger, unmarried women… We'll think on it, okay?"

Shelly didn't look convinced but she didn't argue, which relieved Anny greatly. The idea of training women so they could fight off their abusers was extremely satisfying on one level, but the thought of it turning into some sort of death-match had cured Anny of the notion very quickly. And in any case, the moment that word got out of Anny training women to fight their husbands, her groups could fall apart in an eye-blink. There had to be a better answer.

They had just turned back to other matters when Anny heard the door open and the steady footfalls of Colonel Fetherbay. "Oh, Anthony is home early," said Sara. The 61st's commanding officer came to the door of the dining room where they were working and halted. The look on his face was unlike anything she'd ever seen on him. Worry mixed with… what? He stopped dead when he saw her there.

"Da, what's wrong?" asked Shelly.

"What's happened, Dear?" asked Sara, almost simultaneously.

Fetherbay looked at Anny and hesitated.

"I can leave, sir, if you'd like" she offered.

"No, no… you'd hear about it soon enough, Lieutenant."

"Hear about what, dear?" asked Sara.

Fetherbay took a deep breath and swallowed.

"The regiment is shipping out."

[Scene Break]

"As you've all heard by now, the 61st will be leaving Barrayar in less than a month," said General Vorsilva to his staff. Anny sat in the back, as always.

"Just the 61st, sir?" asked Major Danilov, the Operations Officer. "What about the rest of the brigade, sir?"

"We stay." The anger in Vorsilva's voice was plain. "All the forces for this venture are being 'hand picked', or so I'm told. Overall commander, division commander, brigade commanders, the regiments, the support troops, only the people with the best connections are being considered! And I've already been told that we aren't in the running, so don't hold your breath!" Vorsilva snorted in disgust.

"But with the 61st gone and the 139th in reserve again, that… that doesn't leave much of a brigade, sir."

"Tell me about it, Geoffrey! But we might—might!—get some other regiment orphaned by this operation assigned to the brigade to replace the 61st. If not… well, if not, the brigade might be disbanded."

"Disbanded?" gasped Captain Petrov.

"Yes, disbanded! So update your resumes, gentlemen! In a few months we might all be looking for new assignments." A gloomy silence ensued that eventually Vorsilva broke. "But in the meantime we still have work to do. We must continue winterizing all the facilities and unfortunately, we can't count on the 61st to contribute any manpower. In fact, we'll have to winterize their barracks for them as they'll have no time. Obviously the cold-weather exercise scheduled for after Winterfair is cancelled. And in addition…"

The meeting was shorter than usual and there were very few questions. Vorsilva didn't ask for the usual department reports, so Anny said nothing. As the meeting broke up, she steeled herself to approach the general.

"Excuse me sir," she forced herself to say. "Do you have a moment?"

The same sour expression he'd had throughout the meeting was still on his face. "Only a moment. What is it, Lieutenant?"

"Uh, sir, I request permission to rejoin my regiment, sir."

"Yes, I bet you do! Well, forget it!"

"But, sir, Public Relations is working smoothly! It's practically running on its own! It doesn't need me to…"

"Oh yes, I'm aware of what an outstanding job you've been doing, Lieutenant. Clearly this is a job you were just made for. In fact, I've sent a suggestion to headquarters that you should be put in charge of a program setting up similar systems in forts all over Barrayar. Hell, you might get a captaincy out of that, Payne. Does that appeal to you?"

"I… I'd prefer to be with my regiment, sir." Anny stared at him in horror.

"Request denied. Go unpack your bags, girl. You're not going anywhere!"